It was just short of 31 years ago, during the 1994 season in which the Browns finished 11-5 and made the AFC playoffs for the first time in five years, and wide receiver Michael Jackson was in the midst of missing eight weeks — yes, that’s right, two months! — with a hamstring injury that just wouldn’t heal.
One day in Bill Belichick’s daily pre-practice press conference, I made the regrettable decision to ask the head coach, in so many words, if he thought Jackson was really that hurt.
Belichick and I got along swimmingly. There were no issues at all — except for that moment. I can close my eyes and still see that steely glare of his piercing through me like a thousand knives. That whole scenario was an example of why he has never enjoyed dealing with the media.
Yes, Jackson was hurt. Hamstrings take a long time to heal. I should have known that because I had one as a senior in high school.
Anyway, Belichick let me live — he does have a soft spot, after all — and Jackson finally got back into the lineup for the stretch run to the postseason.
I’ve thought about that a lot through the years, including in training camp and the preseason this year when former Browns quarterback suffered a pulled hamstring and never really got back onto the field much before finally being traded to the Las Vegas Raiders the other day.
My goodness, Kenny, we barely knew ya!
We’ll never know for sure because that injury, in essence, ended the quarterback competition and allowed Joe Flacco to win in a landslide, but I wonder what would have happened had Pickett stayed healthy and was able to fully battle for the job. Would he have won it? Would he at least have stayed on the roster and been No. 2?
To rookie quarterback Dillon Gabriel’s credit, he seized upon the opportunity and impressed head coach Kevin Stefanski — and, of course, General Manager Andrew Berry as well — so much that they felt comfortable enough to part ways with Pickett and keep the Oregon product as the second-stringer, one play away from being the guy.
Stefanski doesn’t need to do anything to get Flacco ready for the season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals, as the long-tenured veteran can do that himself along with the help of quarterbacks coach Bill Musgrave, but rather the head coach’s job will be to bring Gabriel along and get him prepared to play at some point.
Let’s just hope that Gabriel, who also battled hamstring issues in camp, doesn’t re-injure it. If he does and Flacco is also hurt, then the Browns, like it or not, might be forced to use rookie Shadeur Sanders. Should that occur, then the sour looks on the faces of Stefanski and Berry in the war room after owner Jimmy Haslam, despite what he says, ordered his two top football men to select Sanders in the fifth round of the NFL Draft, would be like smiles in comparison to their new reactions.
Steel Belichickian-like glares to be sure, enough so make the old coach, now at North Carolina staring down the college scribes, happy.
Steve King
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